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Monday, April 19, 2010

No, I will not stand up.

Where to begin.

I have, in a previous post, vented my complaints about Nintendo and their quest to make everyone who plays videogames look as silly as possible while doing so. I have kept myself completely isolated from this terrible plague by purchasing no Nintendo products and not being intered in a nursing home (yet). Sony and Microsoft are now following the money, and while I will give Microsoft a few points for at least trying to look different, Sony is about to release the exact same thing. Yes, it relies on Eye Toy 2.0 for depth perception. Yes, the most and sub controllers are connected via blue tooth instead of a card to eliminate the chance of strangling small children. In practice, though, they are indistinguishable, only now with the horse power of the PS3 behind them, you can look silly in 1080p instead 480.

My issue is not with looking like an idiot, as I rarely have witnesses to my game playing and own a few too many undersized plastic instruments to make that arguement stick. Motion control itself is the sticking point. Motion is control is supposed to add something to the game, an illusion of interaction, or maybe just get your fat ass moving, but without any form of feedback it is nothing more than flailing limbs. The idea of lightsaber battles sure sounds cool, but when my attack is blocked and the only feedback I get is visual all the motion control in the world isn't going to keep the immersion from breaking down. I submit that sitting idly with a controller is better for the vast majority of existing genres. The new forms of 'game play' that are being invented to work with the fancy new controllers are all so shallow that they grow stale after only a few hours. Shoe horning existing games into this arena fair no better. I cannot wait for Socom fans to complain when they realize that the Sony lolipop is their only option and it makes accurate aiming and movment impossible. This nonsense may very well be the next step in the evolution of the hobby, but it is a step that should have taken place behind closed doors, held out of the public eye until the technology has caught up with what marketers think gaming is all about. Right now it feels like a step backwards as there is nothing that swinging my arms around can do that pushing a button cannot do better.

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This blog, in its present form, is a way to force me to not game away all my free time every day in the only way I know how: talk about it instead. Also, I play a lot of crap; read about it here so you don't have to. And if the complaining starts to get out of hand, leave anonymous, hateful comments.